Their goal, since they 80's, has been to make government look incompetent so they can privatize it and use as a weapon against their adversaries (who they argue want "big government").

I saw this interview with Arie Rothschild, the author of strangers in their own land (https://youtu.be/RywaAeWbXjo). And she described this sort of paradox, that people sort of know that Republicans are the ones screwing them, but the sting from being hurt by the government causes them to be susceptible to the arguments Republicans make about the government not working.

Don't forget "so they can make a lot of money off of it." One of the critical legs in the "privatization" stool is to make everything more expensive to line the pockets of people profiting off of what was once a government-provided service.

Yeah, I should have explicitly said that. It's the whole point of privatization. Thanks.

How much do they need that angle anymore?

Recent history shows that a lot of the old rules, about persuasion and enabling actions, don't currently apply.

There is no end game. He makes everything up as he goes along. When (if?) the shutdown ends, he will claim victory no matter what the outcome. If it doesn't end, he will still claim victory. He always wins.

Poor people starving is the upside for these folks.

Given that Trump and the left have the same view on this government shutdown as they’re both acknowledging how Republicans control both houses, I wouldn’t say this is part of any plan he has.

Trump has called for the Senate to remove the filibuster, which would allow for the government to reopen with a simple majority instead of needing more votes from Democrats

One could say the only endgame is unilateral control

But this is an issue with Congress which Trump does not control. The Senate is not considering getting rid of the filibuster because of the threat its used in favor of Democrats after midterms

AFAIK the existence of the filibuster is something that's separately decided every session. I think if the Republicans delete it for this session, and Democrats win the next one, they'll bring it back because they suffer from extreme normalcy bias / Business As Usual syndrome.

lmao that could actually work, scary

Trump has no remaining mental powers and is not orchestrating this shutdown.

Mike Johnson has been speaker for long enough so that the average follower of politics probably forgets the fiasco behind his selection.

He’s really not a very skilled politician at all.

And of course, Trump is beyond deep fried, he’s a full blown dementia patient. He has no ability to navigate Congress. He even gave away his party’s leverage by fighting against SNAP payments, giving Democrats no reason to back down.

Fun fact, the only two presidents without government shutdowns since the modern budget process began have been Joe Biden and George W. Bush.

Joe Biden in particular was a master at navigating Congress and has relationships all over the place across the aisle. The bipartisan infrastructure bill is a really legitimate accomplishment in that sense.

Without being in favour of it, this is one reason politicians are old. Not necessarily twenty years past typical retirement, but those relationships that were so useful to Biden were built over decades. Getting elected at 40 doesn't mean you also have the history with others in government to actully get things done.

Good faith could be assumed in some other countries, and those relationships could, subsuquently, be less vital. But that's not the political environment America has found itself in.

I think it’s both relationships and being legitimately good at what you do.

Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi were in their prime extremely shrewd strategic leaders.

Someone like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez started off young and somewhat isolated but has quickly turned into someone who is one of the most important leaders of the party before age 40.

The impression I get is that Mike Johnson was not picked for his skills or connections, but because he was someone who his party’s factions didn’t have an existing hate relationship with.

To own the libs, apparently.

The issue is that the Democrats 'compromised' on the last funding bill - basically had an agreement that some programs would stay funded.

Then the trump administration said "funding allocations from Congress are limits, and we do not have to spend that much on these programs if there is not a need"

And then stopped funding things anyway.

Republican Congress is in his pocket. If he wanted a compromise you bet your bottom dollar it would happen.

There's a conflict because Trump thinks the obvious way forward is you destroy the filibuster, and the Republicans in the Senate fear that when there are more Democrats - say, after the mid-terms - they need the filibuster or else Democratic priorities can become law by simple majority.

Imagine trying to explain to Trump that you can't destroy the filibuster because too many of your colleagues might lose an election. It's like telling a five year old that he can't have desert because he hasn't eaten the vegetables. He doesn't want to eat the vegetables, you are a bad person because rather than agreeing with him you're acting as if he's wrong, which is inconceivable.

Some of Trump's advisors may have the idea that they can rig the 2026 elections and so it won't matter. A big problem is that some of these advisors also assured senators that they'd locked down 2020 and that didn't go so well.

To Trump this seems irrelevant. Why should he care about Susan Collins? She's not even hot, and hasn't given him any cool trinkets. So what if she loses to some Democrat? They're both losers, Trump is the ultimate and his people have told him that over 600% of people support Trump, if she loses that's her fault.

So that's a problem, a recurring problem and so far this term the solution has generally been to ignore Trump's useless suggestions but not do anything he explicitly forbids. Trouble is, Trump doesn't care about the shutdown but the at-risk Republican senators do care.

I actually give Trump more credit for understanding scrapping filibuster is the wrong move.

I also think he’s smart enough to realise people think he’s dumb. So he says scrap filibuster as a way to sow the seeds that there’s tension where there really isn’t.

Maybe it’s too much 4D chess but he is a master manipulator of media/public opinion.

The two longest shutdowns in the history of the United States of America have occurred under Donald J. Trump.

Trump is hosting Great Gatsby parties, traveling, golfing, and doing everything except trying to end the shutdown. He doesn't seem to care that much that it is happening. And the entire reason it is happening is because Trump's Big Beautiful Bill did not contain Affordable Care Act subsidies.

It is incorrect to say that what is happening is common under all administrations. This dysfunction is uniquely Trumpian.

> Government shutdowns are common under both Republican and Democrat administrations.

They're not really, especially at this scale. Since they became a thing when Carter was President, Biden and George W. Bush had 0. Reagan had 3, but only for 6 days total and George H. W. Bush had 1 for 3 days. Clinton had 2 for 28 days total and Obama had 1 for 16 days total.

Clinton and Obama's records are a bit more significant, but Trump so far across his 2 terms, 1 of which is less than a year in, has had 3 shutdowns for 77 total days so far. Or to put it another way, out of the 130 days of shutdown that have even happened since they became a thing 45 years ago, ~60% of them have happened in the 5 years Trump has been president. If you do the math, that's roughly 10x worse government uptime. Notably, those are also the only shutdowns that have happened with one party controlling the Presidency, the House, and the Senate.

I'm still not saying this is definitively the Trump administration's fault, but any way you look at it that is not a great record.

> I'm still not saying this is definitively the Trump administration's fault

How is it not?

The budget requires 60 votes, not a simple majority. Thus it's up to the majority party to present a bill that will win 60 votes.

Some important stuff in major democracies is designed to require way more than simple majority.

In Italy, e.g. the president is elected by the parliament, but the quorum required is two thirds of votes.

This is very important because it forces all governments to find a suitable candidate that is as unbiased and trustable as possible by the overwhelming majority of the representatives.

While elections of the president can drag for very long, even for months, I can't but say we italians have been blessed with great presidents. Each one stepped up to represent italians and never political interests.

> How is it not?

> The budget requires 60 votes, not a simple majority. Thus it's up to the majority party to present a bill that will win 60 votes.

It's up to the majority party to do so, but not up to the President to facilitate it, even if he's a member of the majority party. Of course he should help find a solution and has some responsibility if that doesn't happen. But Congressional Republicans could work out a compromise with Democrats with or without the President's involvement, and as long as they have enough votes to override a veto they can come up with a compromise even if the President actively opposes it.

This is only true if Congress treats the President just as the head of a co-equal branch of government, which is not always the case and is definitely not the case for current Congressional Republicans. The fact that they defer to the President so much effectively shifts more responsibility to the executive branch, but I'm not sure congress isn't still to blame even if they abdicate their responsibility.

Well in this case the executive branch isn't even following congressionally appropriations, so one could argue that this particular shut down is more caused by the president than any other in history.